Kurdish rebels attack tea house in Turkey, killing 2 people

“We are used to this”. Washington and Ankara this week announced their intention to provide air cover for Syrian rebels and jointly sweep Islamic State fighters from a strip of land along the border, with U.S. warplanes using bases in Turkey for strikes.

Violence has flared in the region in the past week, with Turkey launching raids against PKK positions in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey, and the rebels escalating attacks against Turkey’s security forces. In 1984, the organization first carried out an attack on a Turkish military site. “We have to sit down with the Turks and figure it out”, a senior Obama administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The worry is that Turkey’s growing involvement in the Syria war could suck the United States and the Europeans into a wider regional quagmire and that Ankara’s real targets are the Kurds.

Syria’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it was sceptical about Turkish efforts to fight the Islamic State group (IS).

Of the 1,300 people the government rounded up in a nationwide anti-terror sweep, the overwhelming number has been Kurdish.

In Syria, the tensions heighten the risk of conflict between Turkey and Syrian Kurdish militias that – theoretically at least – are on the same side in battling the Islamic State. But Iraq’s prime minister says the Turkish strikes violate Iraq’s sovereignty, and U.S. officials have quietly signaled they’re urging Turkey to lay off.

“People here see that there have been several weak operations against IS while there have been repeated operations against Kurds both politically and militarily”, Gultan Kisanak said in an interview.

Taking off from Incirlik, which is located 110 kilometers (70 miles) from the Syrian border, allows U.S. jets could reach their targets much faster than from the locations they’ve been using – mainly bases in Bahrain and Jordan, and aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

The Turkish government has cast the simultaneous moves against IS and the PKK, as well as the arrest of members of a leftist group, as decisive steps to protect the public and Turkish democracy.

But Ankara decided to more broadly cooperate with the US-led alliance fighting ISIS after a suicide bomber belonging to the jihadist group killed 32 pro-Kurdish activists in a Turkish town bordering Syria on July 20. For a long time, it looked as though a peace agreement with the PKK was in the making. A total of 142 have been charged so far, while 120 were released.

But local media reported the vast majority of the detainees were Kurdish and leftists – not members of ISIS.

In related news, United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien warned Turkey yesterday against calling its planned buffer in northern Syria “a safe zone” unless there is a guarantee of protection for civilians who are likely to flood the area for help.

“What we all know is that Turkey is a staunch ally. I advise them to focus on protecting the cities”, said the commander, who declined to be identified due to the political sensitivities of his criticism.

The HDP charges that Erdogan is upset that the Kurdish party prevented the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which the president founded, from obtaining a majority in parliament after governing as a single-party since 2002. It could also affect any new elections.

The left-wing HDP gained traction after Demirtas campaigned on a progressive platform that took the party beyond its origins in Kurdish nationalism, appealing to a broader range of minorities and opponents of the Islamist-rooted AKP.

On Tuesday, Erdogan declared the process that started in 2012 is over and urged the lifting of immunities for lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is known to have ties with the PKK.

“Turkey appears to be engaged in a strategy of hitting two birds with one stone by giving the impression of fighting ISIL while simultaneously starting operations against the PKK”, wrote Lale Kemal, a columnist for Zaman newspaper, using one of the acronyms of the Islamic State group.